Innovative Dementia Care Programme – Kingsley Healthcare

There are currently 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK and this number is set to rise to two million by 2050. This may sound a frightening statistic but along with this rise there are huge leaps of progress in our understanding of the illness.

Helen Gosling, operations manager at Suffolk-based Kingsley Healthcare talked about the cultural change within their care homes. Helen told the EADT about their new programme WINGS which is all about tailoring the emotional care to the individual. As Helen said although the person’s memory may be fading, their behaviour and their emotions can still be closely connected to their life history.

Helen went on to tell the EADT ‘It is about staff being aware of people’s likes and dislikes and their family history. ‘ WINGS is being put into practice at Allonsfield House near Woodbridge and Helen talks about a resident there who used to be a journalist. Helen explained the new approach by saying this resident was frustrated at not being able to work ‘so we set him up with a desk and paper and pens. It made him much happier…’

Essentially the basis of the WNGS philosophy is that people do not need to stop doing what they love doing when they go into care. Helen finished by saying ‘ We have moved away from clinical care homes. This is their home from home with a family friendly environment.’